Ancients: The Beginning of Coinage
SmEagle1795
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Shown with expressive and diverse imagery today, coinage started from very humble beginnings. The ancient author Herodotos wrote that “the Lydians were the first people we know of to use a gold and silver coinage”. Through hoard evidence and research, numismatists have confirmed that coinage did indeed begin in Asia Minor, likely in Lydia or Ionia.
The earliest coins were made of an alloy known as “electrum”, or “elektron” to the Greeks. Electrum is naturally occurring, found in riverbeds and in nugget form, and is composed primarily of silver and gold with trace amounts of platinum, copper, and other metals. The ancient Greeks referred to electrum simply as “gold” or “white gold” as opposed to “refined gold” which came later when dedicated bi-metallic currencies of pure gold and silver were created. However, electrum worked particularly well for coinage because it was harder and more durable than pure gold and because it was naturally occurring, it allowed coins to be minted prior to the development of the technology for separating the elements.
The intrinsic value of these coins was too high for use in everyday transactions, and therefore, they were likely primarily used for moving large sums of money in mercantile transactions, government expenses, donatives, or for payment for substantial services. It is also speculated that merchants would allow trusted customers to keep a tab, paying it with a single coin once the bill was significant enough.
The conventional definition of what constitutes a coin varies depending on its interpretation. The earliest proto-coins were without any design, essentially just a blank globular ball of electrum. These nuggets were weighed and exchanged at bullion values but were uncontrolled and arbitrary.
This progressed to include reverse punches, used to easily prove the content of the piece by cutting deeply to show that it was made of solid precious metal and to keep the metal from slipping while being struck.
This coin, of the "striation" type, is the first type of coin which introduced the innovation of an obverse image, and it is considered by many to be the transition point from proto-coinage to true coinage. While the design is simple, it is thought to have been inspired by the ripples on the surface of the water, indicating the source of the precious electrum, near creeks and in riverbeds.
Later issues sometimes retained the striations shown behind other images, demonstrating that the lines did indeed hold a special purpose. Aristotle recognized the importance of an obverse image on coins in his important work on economics, as it marked a critical phase of converting from bullion into true coinage.
Striated coins are also represented by a wide array of different denominations, the largest a stater of approximately 14 grams. All of these coins are numismatically and historically important and indicate the conscious control of weight, which helped expedite commerce.
This period in the evolution of coinage was extremely brief, quickly evolving into more detailed images, and so all of the striated coins are very rare, especially the larger denominations like this hekte.
Ionia. Striated; 650s BC, EL Hekte, 2.41g. Weidauer-8. Obv: Striated, Rx: Rough incuse. Good VF.
Learn about our world's shared history told through the first millennium of coinage: Colosseo Collection
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Do you know of any of these very early pieces later being used as host coins, I.e., later being overstruck with a design? I suppose it would be hard to determine. I was just wondering how many pieces liked this would have been seized upon later as convenient, ready-made flans, without remelting.
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<< <i>The Roman Emperor Augustus, who died 2000 years ago in AD 14, was a coin collector. This coin was as far removed from his time as the outbreak of the Black Death is from our time. Even to Augustus this coin woukd have been ancient. >>
That's a fascinating perspective that one really has to pause a moment to consider. To us, it is so easy to mentally pigeonhole all ancient coins into one broad category, and imagine them circulating together or within a century or two of one another.
But as Original Dan said, there are ancients, and then there are ancients. Indeed.
Great piece, great history lesson. I love the term proto-coin! That's a really attractive example of a series that is difficult for some people to wrap their heads around and it was definitely worth noting that these pieces couldn't have been produced for long at all. Decades, or maybe even just a few years. But they started it all.
And it's really cool to think that their use is not fully understood. Your word "speculation" is spot on. Even those who made them were probably struggling in real time with their function and their value. They created a genie and didn't even have a bottle in which to hold it. This technology, for want of a better word, had never existed before. And like the style and design, its function and capacity was evolving before their eyes.
--Severian the Lame
<< <i>Your obverse image is upside down. >>
This type of protocoin held no interest for me until you wrote about it
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agreed..and btw it is upside down!
a hell of a nice example of this type
great write up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spade_money
<< <i>I don't know all that much about ancient Chinese coinage but there are specimens that apparently date back to 700-800 BC and older:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spade_money >>
I understand that there were groups of people in the area of northern India who, like the Chinese "spade money" makers, created stylized copper tools, as early as 1000 BCE.
And many hoards of bronze ax heads have been found throughout Europe, particularly in modern day England, like this hoard found about 5 years ago in Dorset, which dates to about 700 BCE:
Metal tools would indeed have been valuable commodities as well as works of art and technological wonders. They would have had a magical quality. Actual copper and bronze tools would have been so highly prized that they would have almost certainly been used in barter. But barter isn't coinage.
One important shared attribute between the Chinese spade money, Indian copper hoard, and England's axe hoards is that they are representations of actual bronze age implements. They aren't really those implements they are meant to represent. Early spade money still retained the hollow socket for attaching it to a non-existent wooden handle, though the pieces were too flimsy to have been used as tools. Later pieces still had a stylized though now completely useless socket. Even the English bronze axes, which look very similar to the real implement, were made with lots of tin and/or lead. That would have made them look shiny, but would also have made them impractically brittle.
That representative nature is a big step in the direction away from barter on the road to coinage. They weren't meant to be used as tools, though they still retained some of the attributes that made tools attractive pieces with which to barter in the first place. But a stylized tool isn't coinage, either.
On the road to coinage, a stylized tool was just a cheaper, faster-to-produce barter implement. They were representations of things of value, not valuable things. That's why I believe the electrum pieces of Lydia, Ionia and the other Aegean city states are the actual dawn of coinage. They weren't trying to be a spade or an axe. At worst, they were initially trying to be nuggets of gold and silver. But regulated and standardized nuggets. And they quickly evolved into something more valuable, more precise, more desirable than the nuggets they may have originally represented.
--Severian the Lame
We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads.
And the write-up is truly excellent. Although I have to ask, is this a typo? "Through hoard evidence and research, numismatists have confirmed ..." Did you mean "hard evidence" or hoard evidence?
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